Vaccine maker Serum Institute of India (SII) will be launching its second Covid-19 vaccine in June 2021. Adar Poonawalla, CEO and ED, SII, said he hoped to launch the vaccine, to be called Covovax, by June 2021. After the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine, this will be the second vaccine from SII and a third vaccine for India. “Our partnership for a Covid-19 vaccine with Novavax has published excellent efficacy results. We have applied to start trials in India,” Poonawalla tweeted on Saturday.
SII has a tie-up with US-based biotech company Novavax Inc to manufacture one billion doses of the vaccine in 2021. Novavax Inc had on Friday announced that their vaccine had demonstrated 89.3% efficacy in UK Phase 3 trial. Novavax said this was the first vaccine to demonstrate clinical efficacy against both the UK and South African variants of the Covid-19 strain.
SII had tied up with Novavax in September 2020 for manufacturing the NVX-CoV2373 protein-based vaccine. The supply and licence agreement with Novavax is to manufacture and commercialise Novavax’s vaccine. SII has got exclusive rights for the vaccine in India and non-exclusive rights during the pandemic period in all countries excluding upper-middle/high-income countries. Poonawalla plans to start stockpiling the Covavax vaccine from April 2021 and make 50 million doses a month.
